Politics and Government

It's something of a relief, if a mixed one, that the drought has surged into the role of the latest scourge to freak out California. It's a relief in the sense that it means that the California economy, so recently frighteningly rocky, has receded as the top-billed problem facing the state, even if the recovery is more patchy and vulnerable than anyone might wish. But it's mixed, of course, because the drought carries its own dangers, and the ultimate solution — rain — remains wholly out of the power of politicians or everyday Californians. Water and Power is The Times' guide to the drought. Sign up to get the free newsletter >> Fresh signs...

Related "Politics and Government" Articles

While 2014 was a watershed year in the annals of liberalizing Maryland’s pot laws, ringing in decriminalization and revamped medical-marijuana laws, 2003 was a big one, too.
That’s when then-governor Robert Ehrlich, a Republican, signed into law a bill...

People used to have to go all the way to Amsterdam to smoke some legal weed, but here I am, in an office/house on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., wearing a weird red smurf-looking hat and smoking a joint with Adam Eidinger, the man who can claim a lot of...

Shyam Biswal, a professor in the department of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is overseeing an online survey of electronic-cigarette users. The results, according the survey page, will be used to help...

The latest in the ongoing can-there-ever-again-be-a-Republican-president debate is yesterday's entry in WaPo by Dana Milbank, who taps into the wisdom of GOP pollster Whit Ayres to make the point that Republican leaders' views must change if they want...

A controversial state Senate bill that would have increased penalties for "human trafficking" is dead. Sen. Justin Ready withdrew SB 904 just before a scheduled 1 p.m. hearing today. An aide in his office confirmed that the bill is withdrawn. It...

If Gov. Larry Hogan gets his way, James M. Drake will get to retire free of state income tax. Hogan wants the state to exempt the pensions of military retirees and first responders from state income tax. But that’s news to Drake, a retired Navy...

State Del. John Cluster (R-Baltimore County) and state Sen. Michael Hough (R-Carroll and Frederick counties) have become experts on matters involving the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC), the city’s state-run jail that was ground zero in the...

The parents of many, if not most, of the Nose’s gentle readers might not yet have had the sex that spawned them when, in 1985, the issue of raunchy rock lyrics erupted in the U.S. Senate’s “porn rock” hearing. It was a free-speech rock fan’s wet dream,...

Daniella, the new Maryland governor’s 2-year-old granddaughter, just wouldn’t quit. There she was, up on the stage in her mom’s arms, right next to Larry Hogan at his inaugural gala at the Baltimore Convention Center, way past bedtime on the evening of...

Back in 2011, Angello Osborne was arrested and jailed in Harford County for more than eight months on charges that he raped and sodomized his 5-year-old daughter in his Edgewood apartment, until prosecutors, despite having told the media that the daughter...

Two Maryland state senators and two delegates representing Baltimore City have pre-filed a total of 15 bills for consideration in the upcoming 2015 Maryland General Assembly session. Covering issues from elder abuse and pharmacy regulations to the minimum...

Maryland's Republican Party has hired its first finance director in seven years, according to this Sun piece by Erin Cox. (The announcement came a few days ago.) The job goes to Margot Crouch, who graduated from Mic

City Paper's Year in Photos is a compelling view, but also check out the White House's version. Bill Murray's in there, and Obama with the Easter Bunny, and with Vladimir Putin (and with a koala bear, with Putin in the background), and lots of babies,...

Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke (14th District) thinks it might take an act of Congress to adjust Baltimore’s parking laws.
This, anyway, was the impression left by an exchange between veteran city councilmembers during the Nov. 17 meeting. Clarke...

In April, the Maryland Board of Elections made a momentous announcement: In order to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the total amount of money Maryland political donors may lawfully give to campaigns in a four-year period is now unlimited,...

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris has taken a deep, data-driven look at the effects since the 1980s of trickle-down economics, the signature economic-policy achievement of the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret...

Nearly $275,000 in donations from the Baltimore area flowed into two political committees supporting the successful bid of Larry Hogan and Boyd Rutherford for Maryland State House in 2014, according to campaign-finance data, compared to a little more than...

HBO has "probably 160 lawyers" vetting an in-the-works documentary that probes the Church of Scientology, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film, by Oscar winner Alex Gibney and based on Lawrence Wright's 2013 book, "Going...

Cruel Intentions
I am a bi male in my early 20s who until recently was in the closet. I have been exploring my sexuality for the past year, and I didn’t want to label myself and open a Pandora’s box of oppression in the American South before I knew who I...

A brand-new report by the National Center on Family Homelessness, "America's Youngest Outcasts: A Report Card on Child Homelessness," puts the number of homeless youth in America at almost 2.5 million, or one in every 30 children—the highest...